“Tomorrow I will wake up and my life will go on but this summer I will do something else.”

Another added: “The disappointment is a double one — first because we are not good, but second because we were beaten by a team that is even worse than us.”

The extent of the shock that non-qualification represents for Italian football was underlined by the pre-match confidence of most fans that captain Gigi Buffon and his teammates would pull through.

“It is not as if Sweden are that strong a team,” Fabio Votano, a Roman who was only a toddler when Italy last missed out on a World Cup final, had told AFPTV hours before kick-off.

“Not winning is completely unthinkable, basically something that has never happened before. For Italy, getting to the World Cup finals is almost a duty.”

Mamma Mia! Italy, 6 times World Cup finalists, 4 times World Cup winners, ever-present in the World Cup finals since 1958 have failed to qualify for #Russia2018. It won’t be quite the same without them. Arrivederci.

A World Cup finals without Italy? It is like attending a bullfight without a matador. In my working lifetime the Azzuri have neen a constant. Well done Sweden but how can Panama be there and not Italy? Just crazy.